Product Description

Still raw from the brutal slayings of his wife and daughter, and the events surrounding the capture of their killer, The Travelling Man, Charlie Parker retreats to the wintry Maine landscape of his childhood. By following in the steps of his beloved grandfather, Parker hopes to heal his spirit and get through the bitter anniversary of Jennifer and Susan’s murder. But the echoes of the past that await him are not all benign. In a gruesome re-enactment of Bird’s own nightmares, another young woman is killed with her child and his brief involvement in their lives impels Parker to hunt their vicious murderer. As the death toll mounts, Parker comes to realise that the true answer to the puzzle lies thirty years in the past, in a tree with strange fruit, in his own grandfather’s history, and in the perverted desires of a monster incarnate - Caleb Kyle.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35692 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Recent years have seen a flurry of horror writers crossing over to the mystery genre--Peter Straub, Dan Simmons and Kristin Kathryn Rusch are three--but little movement has occurred in the opposite direction. Mysteries are where the commercial action is. When John Connolly, an Irish journalist, burst upon the scene in Great Britain in 1999 with the bestselling Every Dead Thing (it later won the Shamus award for Best First Private Eye Novel when published in the States), it would not have been unfair to describe what he was offering as "horror". However, "shock noir" is probably a better way of describing such a grab-you-by-the-eyelashes thriller, with its high body count and inventively grisly methods of dispatching hapless victims.

Connolly--who seems unconcernedly to be trespassing on Stephen King territory in Dark Hollow, with its Maine setting and echoes of background atrocities--actually brings to mind a slightly different hybridisation of horror and mystery: you might say it's Wilkie Collins re-tooled by James Ellroy. Lurking in his pages is more than a faint whiff of the Victorian triple-decker, with all its gothic complexities, while, at the same time, punctuating the plot are grotesque and excessive acts of sadism of a wholly modern sort that will cause some readers indignantly to close the book.

The trouble is, by doing that they miss a richly ripe, closely textured tale. Connolly's series character, ex-NYPD detective Charlie "Bird" Parker, is a man with a lot of pain to surmount--his wife and child were murdered in Every Dead Thing--but he's also a dogged knight errant attuned to the pain felt by others. In Dark Hollow, his quest for the truth is a twisty one, but he stays the course, and so should you. --Otto Penzler, Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk Review
To say that John Connolly enjoyed a remarkable success with his first book,Every Dead Thing, is to understate the case. This first thriller featuring Detective "Bird" Parker was a highly unusual entry in the field, written in a raw, arresting style. But is Dark Hollow, the second appearance of Connolly's fiery and inexorable investigator, equally gripping? Connolly himself has remarked that he wanted to give this new book a very sinister feel, rather than just a gruesome one. In this, he has succeeded triumphantly.

This time, Bird--recovering from the murder of his family by The Travelling Man--returns to the scene of happier times, the wintry Maine of his childhood. But relaxation is once again elusive: another young woman is savagely killed along with a child, and Bird's previous encounter with the victims compels him to track down the murderer. There is an obvious suspect, but Bird believes that the real answer lies 30 years in the past. As the body count increases, it becomes apparent that someone else is hunting for Billy, the dead woman's ex-husband and chief suspect in the slaying. And this dangerous figure appears to know Bird intimately. Before long, the tormented detective is investigating the terrifying origins of a mythical killer: the psychopathic Caleb Kyle.

Along with the kind of riveting storytelling skills we have come to expect from Connolly, the author has built into his narrative a superstructure of striking imagery. Predatory nature and the cycle of the seasons feed into the darker corners of the plot and illuminate the grim psychopathology of the characters. Bird remains the most involving of protagonists--and by dovetailing his hero's troubled past into the search narrative, Connolly ensnares the reader to the past page: "'Nice car', he repeated, and a fat white hand emerged from one of his pockets, the fingers like a thick, pale slugs that had spent too long in dark places. He caressed the roof of the Mustang appreciatively, and it seemed as if the paint would corrode spontaneously beneath his fingers". --Barry Forshaw

Review
'classic American detective fiction ... and of a very high order' -- Bernard Cornwell, Mail on Sunday 'Connolly's evocative prose and sharp one-liners make it oddly akin to poetry' -- Independent 'Despite the gore, this second novel is subtler and more complex than the best-selling EVERY DEAD THING. Connolly's lyrical language and occasional mystical passages are reminiscent of James Lee Burke. His hero ... is developing into a credible and sympathetic personality' -- Sunday Telegraph '... a dark sense of foreboding from the opening pages should will and chill Connolly's considerable fan-base through this second novel at great pace... Killer imagery is his secret weapon' -- Sunday Business Post, Dublin 'DARK HOLLOW is a frightening, disturbing and brutal tale interspersed with great moments of dark humour' -- Yorkshire Evening Press 'Connolly is not an easy author to pigeonhole. He is his own man: an original and exuberant story-teller, as he proves once more with this enjoyable book' -- Keith Baker in Scotland on Sunday 'Atmospheric, compulsive and deeply upsetting, [DARK HOLLOW] mark(s) the appearance of a writer whose star is most definitely in the ascendancy' -- Manchester Metro 'Connolly's characters have substance beyond vehicles for horror, and this is what puts him ahead in a crowded genre race' -- What's On (Amazon Books) 'As the body count increases, Connolly introduces a chilling new villain and an age-old legend. Together they'll keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't read it alone! -- Books

Connolly created quite a stir with the first Charlie 'Bird' Parker thriller, Every Dead Thing, and the auguries for this latest one are equally promising. This time, Bird returns to the wintry Maine of his childhood. But past memories are threatening: a young woman is killed with her child, and Bird's encounter with the victims impels him to track down their murderer. There's an obvious suspect - but Bird comes to believe that the real answer lies 30 years in the past. Connolly builds some painstaking research into a narrative of carefully orchestrated tension and the chilling monster he creates here is another key factor in this compulsive tense thriller. (Kirkus UK)

New York PD Detective Charlie "Bird" Parker, relocated to his hometown in Maine after the murders of his wife and daughter in "Every Dead Thing "(1999), tracks a serial killer. Connolly, a former Dublin journalist, opens his grim new thriller with a prologue depicting a deal gone bad on the Maine coast, crossfire that leaves more bodies down than the reader can count, and no clear tie to the story that follows. Recovering alcoholic Charlie, still suffering and grieving, is toting up his many, many losses when Rita Ferris asks him to get some overdue child support from her wife-beating ex-husband, Billy Purdue, who lives in a wretched bullet-shaped trailer. When approached, Billy cuts Bird's throat part-way, but shucks out several new hundred-dollar bills for Rita from a much larger stack that Bird suspects he stole from the Boston Mafia. Then Billy disappears, and Rita and their six-year-old son are found murdered. What does all this have to do with the 1965 killing of five women whose corpses were discovered dangling from a tree by Bird's grandfather? Although a retarded man was arrested for the crimes, Grandpa (also a cop) was convinced they were committed by Caleb Kyle, a man whose name has since become byword in the Maine woods for pure evil-a name on the lips of the old woman who commits suicide after the prologue's mysterious rampage. The police, the Mafia, and Bird, helped by a couple of gay hit men, are all looking for Billy, whose link to Caleb sparks the bloody denouement. Bird is left with his armies of the dead in a world where people are hurt and die badly while the hero feels rage and sorrow. Connolly's honest but brutal characterizations leave the reader with wounds that need stitching. Long, but a strong stride forward. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

An excellent follow up to "Every Dead Thing"
This the second in the Charlie Parker series is much superior to its predecessor. Connolly has created a well worked thriller with more subtlety than his first effort. Relying less on shootings and murders and more on character and plot development "Dark Hollow" is a more satisfying experience. However I do still have some gripes. Firstly there is still far too many shootings and gun action. Perhaps a bit more investigative work should replace this. Secondly Connolly describes the history of Maine, the vastness of its forests and cyclical nature of its seasons in great detail. I don't suspect the typical crime reader of whom I'd like to count myself has any great interest in this.

Much better than the first book
P.I. Charlie Parker returns in the second novel in the series written by John Connolly. The story is about a murderer named Caleb Kyle who stalked and brutally murdered women over 30 years ago in a small town in Maine called Dark Hollow. Kyle disappeared many years ago and is now regarded as a myth or the bogeyman to locals who were too young to remember the hideous crimes. Now people are turning up dead again and all clues point to Dark Hollow and Caleb Kyle and the case that Charlie Parker's grandfather was investigating and was left unsolved 30 years ago.

I read Connolly's first novel starring Charlie Parker, Every Dead Thing, earlier this year and to be honest I wasn't all that impressed. I thought it was slow, over-the-top and the ending left me feeling very underwhelmed. Anyway, after the mass praise that this series has gotten from its readers I thought I'd stick with it and give the next one a chance and I am so glad I did as `Dark Hollow' was fantastic. It was fast-paced, action-packed, emotional and had good balance of horror and crime thriller elements that I felt worked really well.

From the opening chapter I was completely gripped as it felt like a mix between a mod novel and a good old-fashioned supernatural thriller. Parker's character is much more developed than he was in the previous novel with a great relationship between Louis and his partner Angel, who are equally as good characters as Parker and would make decent lead characters themselves. The story is full of twists and turns that kept me guessing all the way until the end and was never short of surprises.

The book is by no means perfect as there are a few things that let it down a little, such as the easy-kill, high body count. For a majority of the book I was sarcastically thinking "who cares if people get killed if they're bad guys?! It's not like it's illegal to kill people!!!". Oh well, I guess that's what makes it fiction I suppose.

Overall this was a thoroughly enjoyable book, if a little far-fetched, but had enough chills and suspense to keep me hooked all the way through. I now look forward to reading the rest of the series, as by going by other reviews on Amazon it looks as if this series only gets better.

getting better
John Connolly's books came highly recomended to me but I have to say I was disappointed with Every Dad Thing. I decided to stick with them though and I'm glad I did. Dark Hollow is a creepy, atmospheric page-turner.